Illuminate
by Professor Angst
Summary: you're my anomaly.


**Illuminate**

* * *

she lies beneath him, a fusion of glass and starlight, like a blind ghost in a waking world.

he is all fingertips and sticky treacle air and butterfly kisses trailing her collarbone in the shape of words that nobody knows.

together, they make infinity.

* * *

with touch alone they pull each other apart. the midnight window throws a wash of silver over them like a silken blanket, rinsing their tangled bodies of all the words shattered on their lips, memories better left forgotten. it washes them clean of themselves, as he runs his hands through her hair and their lips collide. somehow his lungs don't feel like lungs anymore.

_you're my anomaly._

and it's true. every moment that passes between them draws him deeper into the hidden wonders of her mind, smoothing out corners inside him that he'd never recognized as corners before. seismic waves and radiation crush barriers that once provided shelter. she teaches him more about the past, present or future than any anomaly ever could. after all, what are they but pretty balls of light with cores of crumpled, destitute time? they are by their very nature broken and obsolete.

blushing, she presses closer against him. _i feel like i should say something profound now, but...i can't think of anything. i love you, evan cross, and that's all i have. i love you._

the words are snatched from the air as they crush each waiting second into an impatient abstraction of desire.

they kiss and they kiss and they kiss.

and what lies between them is no longer space but the darkest passions of colour and addiction, and he whispers, _that's all i need. if you can say that and mean it, dylan, nothing else matters._

a heartbeat. an echo.

i

love

you

too

.

* * *

they lie beneath the covers together, intertwined. the clouds have stolen away the moon so they construct a new reality for themselves, founded on stones of touch and taste and pulses like butterflies underneath their skin. there is no stronger foundation for a universe so breathless; pauses are few and fleeting, molten glass on a razor edge.

he talks of a fascination with light. sunshine and candles and the innocence of polished copper.

she talks of darkness and how she longs to burn. light, she says, is a kaleidoscope, lush and rich and intricately complex, whereas darkness is nothing more than absence.

she has light. she will admit to her light. but her light, in her words, is pathetic: a lit cigarette, a bonfire spark. with fire ravaging his veins he holds her, fierce and close, waiting for her to finish.

the word _pathetic_, ironically, burns bright with her hatred.

she is painting a thousand pictures with her words.

* * *

not a thousand pictures, but the thousands of aspects that can exist in a single image.

the blood that stains the fingers of a teenage girl sitting cross-legged on the floor. the flick of a shimmering paintbrush brings the sky to its knees. the silent envy of the heat flowing from the tip of the joint she holds with all the wrong fingers.

she tries to summon fire. it turns to embers, then ashes, then nothing at all.

she doesn't want embers or ashes. it's wildfire she seeks, explosive and uncertain, furious and full of colour, capable of killing, wounding, keeping her safe from the world that has trampled over her heart time and time again. she's sick of her own sensitivity. the glow of the embers that define her are worthless. she was not put on this planet to glow.

she was chosen for apocalyptic fire. one day, she will even consume oblivion.

* * *

_fire is beautiful, _he whispers it like a secret, or a treasure map, as he draws a trail of kisses along her forehead and down her cheek. _but so are sparks and embers. maybe more so than fire, and less destructive. you're beautiful as you are, darkness and all. embers need shadows to survive. darkness isn't absence. darkness is courage. darkness is what's left when you take away the light._

_you're more beautiful, _her murmurs break through a delicate skin of silence. _you look like light. light scattered across the surface of the ocean. no, you're scattered everywhere, all over the place, but your soul is the ocean and holds everything together and it's beautiful, it's all beautiful._

_and you say you can't be profound, _he smiles, but her eyes are closing.

_sorry...sleepy..._

_s'okay, _he rests his chin against the top of her head, arms tight around her. every breath he takes feeds her embers with the oxygen that gives them life. he is the one who stops her turning into ashes. every time. _goodnight, dylan. i love you._

_night, evan, _she mumbles, already half-asleep. _love you too._

* * *

they fall asleep together.

stolen light.

scattered stars.

* * *

this is the design of their universe.

infinity.

* * *

**Edited and re-uploaded.**

**Written for Kai.**

**I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I want you to know that I'm sorry.**

**You can probably guess who I am.**


End file.
